


The Mother's Day Card

by 2momsmakearight



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mother's Day, Season 9, first Mother's Day for Scully, writing challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 12:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11036403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2momsmakearight/pseuds/2momsmakearight
Summary: It's Scully's first Mother's Day and she receives a card in the mail....





	The Mother's Day Card

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tumblr, May 2016, for @leiascully's writing challenge.

Somewhere in New Mexico  
May 8th, 2001

He looked back at the display before placing a six-pack on the counter, waiting to be purchased. He fingered the thickened paper, pink and purple envelopes adorning the backs. “Happy Mother’s Day!” they read in inventive cursive and loopy scrolls. His lips curled into a small smile when he saw one card, and he lifted it from the rack.

Opening it, he felt his chest tighten, and eyes burned as he read the words inside, missing her so much in that moment he could hardly bear it. He sighed deeply, willing his lungs to remember how to breathe.

“You too, huh?” came a deep voice behind him. Mulder whipped around, his baseball cap low enough on his forehead to hide his eyes. The growth on his face disguised his remaining features, but his stomach bottomed out nonetheless.

“Excuse me?” he asked in clarification, his voice shaky, though from fear or emotion he wasn’t sure.

The younger man gestured to the card display. “Mother’s Day cards…”

Mulder nodded once, looking back at the card in his hand. “Uh…right,” he sighed in relief.

The younger man stepped forward, smiling uncomfortably. “It’s my wife’s first Mother’s Day. Our daughter was born in July… There are so many of these to choose from aren’t there?” he laughed.

Mulder huffed, shuffling his feet as he moved forward in the line. “Yeah, I guess… I wouldn’t really know, to be honest. I’ve never really done this before,” he chuckled.

“Your first too, then? the other man smiled.

Mulder tilted his head in confirmation. “Yeah, my uh…,” he trailed off, feeling his throat tighten. He swallowed thickly, clearing the lump. “My son is almost a year old,” he said looking down at the blue and cream card in his hand, stepping forward again in the line.

“Is he walking yet?”

Mulder just stared at the younger man.

“Your son. Is he walking? They say that boys walk sooner than girls. My daughter is still crawling but we think she’ll be walking by her first birthday.”

Mulder didn’t know how to answer the other father, because he honestly didn’t know the answer. He had missed all of it. Every major moment, every milestone. Had he said his first words yet, or taken his first steps? He didn’t know. His gut burned with remorse, thick and hot as it brewed inside of him.

If the other man noticed Mulder’s emotional state he didn’t let on. “I thought I couldn’t love my wife anymore than the day I married her. But lemme tell ya, watching her with our daughter has made me appreciate her on a whole new level. Don’t you think?”

Mulder closed his eyes, wincing as the words washed over him. His love for Scully had blossomed in ways he never imagined, or thought possible. He missed the sound of her voice, and he found himself reaching for the phone more times than he could count. He missed the softness of her skin, how it felt when he trailed his fingers down her back, marveling at the curves and valleys of her lithe body.

But nothing prepared him for how much he missed his son, how much he missed his family.

Family.

“Uh…, yeah. I love her more every day…,” he said softly. He meant it.

The other man chose his card, and tapped it against the counter. “Well, I have to get some more stuff. Milk, eggs, and all that… Take care, man,” he said before turning and walking away with his choice.

“Yeah…bye,” Mulder said to his back.   
He watched the man walk away, lost in his own thoughts. Glancing at the top of the card display, he noted the date. “Mother’s Day is May 13th,” it read. Doing the mental calculations in his head, he stepped up to the cashier, and handed her his items.

If he mailed it immediately, she might get it just in time.

—–  
Georgetown  
May 12th, 2001

Her weekends were lonely, abysmal in their solitude. The silence was deafening, but if she strained hard enough, she could still hear the infectious laughter of the son she gave away only weeks before. Sometimes, as she sat on her couch clutching the monogrammed pillow from his crib, she would press her nose to the fabric, inhaling the powdery remnants of him, his scent slowly dwindling like a memory.

She walked into her apartment, immediately turning on her television to drown out the buzzing silence that filled her ears. She threw the mail on her table, sifting through the junk and the bills, sorting them into neat piles. Always neat piles. That she could control.

A soft teal envelope caught her attention, and she lifted it, letting the rest of the mail fall from her fingers. Her brows scrunched as she looked at it, noting an absent return address but a post-mark from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

She pulled the card from its wrapping, and she gasped, her other hand covering her mouth as tears immediately filled her eyes.

Her heart ripped in half as she read the words, her hands shaking so severely she could barely see.

On the cover it read, “To the woman I love: yesterday, today and always…,”

She bit her lip, stifling the sob threatening to emerge from her throat. God, she missed him. She wished he was there to hold her, his strong arms wrapping around her tiny frame, the warmth of him soothing her weary soul. He would make everything better. He always did.

She pulled a chair out and sat down, opening the card.

~~

“We have a past… You were my love before I even realized it. I had been searching for a long time, and then my heart recognized you.

“We have a present… You understand my language, whether it’s a sigh, or a nudge, or a sly wink. You inspire me to be real, to face things and give everything my best shot. You accept me as I am, and sometimes I’m not entirely lovable, but you love me anyway.

"We have a future… No matter what my fears, no matter what my challenges, you’ll be there for me, and I’ll be there for you. We’re part of each other, and you and I will always have the best kind of love.

Happy Mother’s Day”

~ Dana, on this day, and every day, know of my love for you, and for William.

~~

Scully couldn’t fight the sob that erupted from her throat, hiccuping as hot tears streamed down her face. She brought the card to her lips, kissing the creamy vellum. “I’m so sorry, Mulder. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

How would he ever forgive her? How would she ever forgive herself? What kind of mother was she? She sobbed louder, her head resting in the palm of her hand.

What kind of mother was she, she kept repeating. She looked around her empty apartment, and then back to the card in her hand realizing that she wasn’t a mother at all… Not anymore… The man she loved, the man she so desperately wished to see would never forgive her. She gave away his son. His flesh and blood. He would never forgive her.

What kind of mother was she? Her heart ached in her chest, breaking into a million little pieces, as the crushing reality of her loss hit her. They would never be a family. There would never be Mother’s Days and Father’s Days, family dinners and Christmas mornings. She was the one to tell Mulder to leave. And she was the one who gave her miracle child, conceived in the arms of the man she loved, to strangers.

It was her fault. What kind of mother was she?

“I’m so sorry, Mulder,” she sobbed into the the air.

Happy Mother’s Day, indeed.

—


End file.
